Blank for making foldable keyboard-indicators.



c. H. REEVE, BLANK FOR MAKING FOLDABLE KEYBOARD INDICATOR Sf APPLICAHO'N 111w DEC-11.1914.

1,293,923. Patented Feb.11,1919.

;;F G A BCQD EF G A BC Dji ,91: F G A BC D EF G' A BQ Z w #1 1 w 1 I CARLTON H. REEVE, OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.

BLANK FOR MAKING FOLDABLE KEYBOARD-INDICATORS.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Feb. 11, 1919.

Application filed December 11, 1914. Serial No. 876,668.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, CARLTON H. Rnnvn, citizen-of the United States, residing at Chicago, in the county of Cook and State of Illinois, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Blanks for Making Foldable Keyboard-Indicators; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and

exact description of the invention, such as will enable others skilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same.

This invention has for its object to provide a blank printed form for a piano keyboard indicator which is adapted to be cut into strips and the latter pivotally joined to produce a foldable device of this character in which each letter or symibol will, when the strip is extended to its full length, register exactly with the keys of a piano key- 0 board upon which said indicator is adapted to be mounted.

In the manufacture of piano keyboard indicators of the type to which this invention relates difficulty has been experienced in so arra ging the pivots between the sections of the indicator, that the letters or synrbols on the several sections will not be thrown out of register with the keys of the keyboard. This was due to the difficulty experienced in properly locating eyelets or the like constituting the pivotal connections between the sections so that they would fall in such position relatively to contiguous letters or symbols so as to maintain the spacing between the latter always identical with the distance between centers of the keys indicated or designated thereby.

The particular object of my invention is to provide a blank upon which the keyboard 0 indicator is primarily printed in such mannor that when out into strips preparatory to pivotally connecting the latter to form the foldable complete indicator, the ends of the strips to be connected together may be placed 5 in an eyeleting machine and punched and pivotally connected together so as to maintain the desired spacing between the contiguous letters or symbols as above indicated.

0 In the accompanying drawings illustrating my invention:

Figure 1- is a face view of a sheet of paper or similar material having printed thereon the letters or symbols indicating the l various keys of the keyboard of a piano and Fig. i 1s a fragmentary detail sectional view on the line 44 of Fig. 3.

The keys of a piano key-board vary in their spacing from center to center of contiguous keys and accordingly in providing a keyboard indicator, the distance between the symbols or letters indicating or designating the various keys must correspond with the spacing apart of the keys themselves. The key-board is relatively long and it has been found, therefore, more practical and desirable to provide an indicator which will fold so that it may be stored in a small space when not in use and may be more easily shipped and handled than a strip corresponding in length with the entire keyboard. Accordingly it has been customary to provide a foldable structure of this character consisting of a plurality of sections pivotally secured together by means of eyelets, the axes of such pivots extending perpendicularly to the faces of the strips or strip sections. Great diiiiculty hasbeen experienced, however, in so locating the pivots or pivotal connections between contiguous sections as to maintain the proper spacing between the last letter or symbol on one of said strips and the first letter or symbol on the strip connected therewith. Any error at one pivotal point is, of course, sufficient to throw every letter or symbol contained on one section of the strip out of register with the keys, and errors at more than one pivotal connection sometimes exaggerated the lack of register and sometimes compensated to some extent for the same. In either case, however, it was seldom possible to produce a complete foldable key-board indicator, every letter or symbol of which registered with the key of the keyboard indicated or designated by such letter or symbol.

By means of my invention this difficulty has been overcome with the result that each and every keyboard indicator produced from the blank constituting my invention has all of its symbols or letters properly disposed to register eXac ly with the keys of the keyboard.

The blank consists preferably of a sheet 1 of a relatively stifi paper or similar material. Upon this there are printed a number of parallel rows of letters or symbols 2ind1- cating or designating the various keys of the key-board of a piano, the total number of symbols contained on the sheet being equal to the number of keys of the key-board and the symbols in each row being spaced apart to accord with the spacing of the keys intended to be indicated or designated thereby, so that all of said symbols in such row will register with said keys when positloned on the key-board. V

The number of rows of symbols 2 may be varied as desired, but I have found in practice that four rows of the same constitutes a satisfactory division and that when so divided the key-board indicator may be sufliciently shortened when folded to render the handling thereof convenient. The sheet 1 is adapted to be cut along the dotted lines 3 to divide said sheet into a number of strips corresponding to the number of rows of symbols or letters 2 contained thereon. The symbols of each'of said respective rows are so located relatively to the respective ends of the sheet that when the latter is out into strips and the strips pivotally connected together the pivotal connections will be made equi-distantly from the respective ends of the sheets and at the same time the spacing between the symbols or letters nearest contiguous to the pivotal connections. will correspond with the spacing of the keys indicated or designated thereby. Thus the last letter of the right hand end of the upper row of letters or symbols on the sheet is spaced from said end of the sheet and the neXt succeeding letter G at the left hand end of the said sheet that when the sheet is cut into strips and the strips overlapped and pivotally secured together by means of eyelets disposed where the dotted circles 4 appear on said sheet, said letters F and G, last referred to, will be spaced the requisit distance from each other to register with the corresponding keys adapted to be indicated or designated thereby. The said circles l at opposite ends of the sheet are disposed respectively 'at equal distances from the respective ends of said sheet. By this arrangement I am enabled to place the ends of the two strips, which I wish to connect together, by means of an eyelet, in an eyeleting machine and accurately place the eyelet by simply holding the strips with their ends, which are to be connected, in abutment with a suitably placed stop. So

also the last letter E at the right hand end of the second row of letters or symbols 2 and the letter F at the left hand end of the third row of letters or symbols 2 will now be positioned to register with the right hand end of the strip containing the second row and the eyeleting operation repeated and this will be again repeated in connect ing the strip containing the third row of letters or symbols with the strip containing the fourth or last row thereof. 7 7

When the several strips are now turned relatively to each other to cause the indicator to be fully extended all of the letters and symbols contained thereon will be so spaced apart that each and every one thereof will register with the desired key of the key-board of the piano, the first and fourth strips being, however, cut off along the dotted lines 7 and 8 indicated in Fig. -1 to sufficiently shorten the indicator to fit between the side or end rails of the piano keyboard. 7 g

It will be noted that the dotted circles 5, 5 are somewhat farther removed from the respective ends of the sheet than the dotted circles 4, 4 and that the circles 6, 6 are dis posed substantially the same distance from the ends of the sheet as the circles a, f. It will be found that on the piano keyboard the keys E, F of the fourth octave from the left are spaced less far apart than the keys D, D of the sixth octave and the keys F, G of the second octave. The difierence is very slight but unless the eyelet circles are correspondingly spaced from the ends of th sheet the whole indicator is thrownmore or less out of register with the key-board.

I claim as my invention:

A blank for piano key-board indicators comprising a sheet of paper or the like having printed thereon a plurality of horizontal rows of letters of the alphabet corresponding to the usual designations of the keys of a piano keyboard and'having also printed thereon horizontal and vertical dotted lines or the like to indicate where the sheet is to be cut, the strips containing the several rows of letters from the upper to the lower being adapted to be pivotally secured together when the sheet is out along the dotted lines so that the uppermost row of letters will be disposed at the left-hand end of the articulate strip and the lowermost row at the right-hand end thereof, the intermediate rows being successively positioned from left to right of the articulate strip in the order of their elevation in the sheet, the latter having printed thereon contiguous to its opposite ends pairs of dotted circles, or the like indicating the location of pivots in assembling the strips, the eyelets of each pair being equidistant from opposite ends of the sheet and positioned with respect to the nearest adjacent letters to cause the latter to become spaced apart in the articulate structure to register with the 10 pleted articulate strip will be of exactly the length of the piano key-board between the end rails of the latter.

In testimony whereof I have signed my name in presence of two subscribing Witnesses.

CARLTON H. REEVE.

WVitnesses:

JOHN V. FILIPPINI, HUGH MCCURDY.

Copies of this potent may be obtained for five cents each, by sddressing the Commissioner of htents, Washington, D. O. 

